[kingdoublecut]

Greetings all - first post. Long time Dimarzio user who wandered over to SD and back again. I have a weird wiring situation. I have three guitars with the same pickup configuration and the exact same wiring. Two sound identical, but one is not playing nice. I run HSH so I can get my strat tones along with my 'buckers. Each guitar has Dark Matter 2 single coils and either Transition or Dark Matter buckers. Actually the problem child has Sterling Transition clones - which I really like.

The issue is position 4 (neck/middle) (all have 5-ways) on the Transition clones is extremely and unnaturally thin. Position 2 sounds as it should - nice quacky strat tone. I have gone back through all three guitars today and verified all are wired the same, so I have no clue as to why this one position is off, especially since P4 works but P2 doesn't.

Anyone have any thoughts on this curious issue? Any info is very much appreciated.

Also - on the DM2 single coil...what is with the gray wire. I don't have it attached to anything in any of the guitars and I can find nothing as far as wiring diagrams that even references a gray Dimarzio wire.

[HarlowTheFish]

The grey wire might be for phase issues, which you seem to be having, but the issue is the Transition clones. The EBMM Luke III (and the Sterling that's based on it that has the pickups you're having trouble with) have position 2 and 4 being inside coils together, then outside coils together, so the neck pickup is RWRP relative to the bridge. If you're using an HSH setup, you want your neck and bridge humbuckers to have the same winding direction and polarity to work well with the middle single (unless you use the inner coil of one humbucker and the outer coil of the other). In your case I think you'd have to take the neck pickup apart and rotate the magnet 180° (so the part that used to be under your treble strings is now under your bass strings and vice-versa) and that should hopefully fix it. If it's still an issue after that, you'd need to swap which coil of the humbucker is active in position 4.

[DarthPhineas]

1. Confirm the color codes of all pickups in use.

2. Double check your wiring. Then triple check it.

[kingdoublecut]

HarlowtheFish - I think you have hit the nail on the head. I have two choices at this point: take apart the neck pickup (which I have never done before) or replace the clones with an existing set of SD JB/Jazz I have or get real Transitions. Now, a question, as I do have REAL Transitions in one of these 3 guitars and the same wiring works as it should...I would assume that Transitions don't "normally" come with the neck RWRP?

Keep in mind - I have completely replaced the original pots/cap/wiring with full-size US parts. Would this have any bearing on the issue?

Any direction on where to look for pickup deconstruction info? Putting the SDs in at this point is the "Easy Button" solution.

[HarlowTheFish]

To take it apart, flip it over and take out the small screw holding down the baseplate, then pull it off, flip the magnet, put it back on, and re-screw the baseplate on. Pretty easy as long as you go slow and are delicate with it to not break any wires.

If you want a legit Transition set that will work with your setup, just call in and order direct from Dimarzio and let them know that it's going in an HSH setup and that you want something that will be in phase with the DM2 single in the middle when split.

[kingdoublecut]

I really appreciate your comments. I will try the magnet flip and let you know how it goes. I did find a Stew-Mac article showing how to do it. Cheers!